Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Warmer than Naples, cool as Devonshire

As a contribution to the question so familiar to Anglo-Indians of where to go on retirement, we give below (says the Indian Daily News, Calcutta) an extract from a private letter, dated Tauranga, New Zealand, June 24th: "Should you happen to know any old Indians who are leaving the glorious East, and whose income will not allow of their living up to the mark in England, you may safely recommend them to come to this country. The climate is charming — warmer than Naples in winter, cool as Devonshire in summer. All English and semi-tropical fruits grow luxuriantly apples, pears, guavas, pomegranates. The bees gather honey all the year. The busy ones collect it from the clover paddocks and from the blue gum trees, and in quality, flavour, and colour, it is quite equal to the Narbonne. Any family with a capital of £2,000, and an income of from £200 to £300 per annum would enjoy life here. From 8 to 10 per cent, can be obtained on first-class mortgage securities. Five hundred pounds would buy a compact little estate of from 20 to 30 acres within a couple of miles from the town, and a property thus situated would early increase in value. A like sum would build an excellent 8 or 10-roomed bungalow, coach-house, stable, and outhouse. Two or three horses, and a like number of cows, would find plenty in the paddocks, and the owner, if energetic, might turn a dollar or two by cropping four to five acres in potatoes, or in mangles or turnips as winter feed for his milch cows, whose butter would find at that season a ready sale at 1s 6d per lb. Education is cheap, for the Government provides it gratis for all classes. The private schools have to considerably reduce their charges to induce parents to patronise them. Auckland and Otago possess first-class agricultural colleges. Should any of your friends or clients think of coming here I shall be delighted to answer any question pertaining to the place." The foregoing extract contains far more real information and sound advice than is obtainable by the ordinary means of pamphlets, guide books, etc. The idea suggested of men of education and moderate means coming to Tauranga is the very thing that is required. An advent of a few dozen families would work quite an effectual change, and would yield what is now so much in demand, namely, a settled community possessing tastes and experience, and an education formed by the Old Country model and drawn from its institutions. The correspondent is unquestionably right in the views expressed, and those who are thinking of Tauranga as a spot likely to provide the desiderata, will do well to bear in mind that, whatever the farmer proper may do (the man who has tilled and laboured his hundreds of acres), the counsel to the man of small capital and modest income is, you cannot commence with too little land, but the acquisition of too much is very simple, the "indulgences" of banks quite notorious, and the result a foregone conclusion. The man of education should not be ambitious beyond his powers if his income is small, his moral presence is great, and we are now in that state of transition from the primitive to the more enlightened modes of thought, and such an acquisition to our population would be far more acceptable than a millionaire or two.

....

A stranger in a country printing office asked the youngest apprentice what his rule of punctuation was. Said the boy, "I setup as long as I can hold my breath, and then I put a comma; when I gape, I insert a semicolon and when I want a sneeze I make a paragraph."

"Where to Go on Retirement from H.M. Service." 
Bay Of Plenty Times, 
4 October 1883, 2.


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